Returning Home: FX Gonzaga High School Sixtieth Reunion
by colonellunchmeat
Summary: So Lenny is coming back to his HS reunion with his companion of 33 years, Abe...how will his blue-collar pals deal with that? Especially Squiggy, who once was closer to Lenny in a decade of just kinda, guys fooling around, you know?
1. Chapter 1

RETURNING TO MILWAUKEE...WHY?

Lenny Kosnowski got out of the rented Prius. God, there it all is. He turned to Abe, who had shut the door on the driver's side. He looked at the Avenue. Everything was gone. Of course when they'd all moved to Burbank, Frank DeFazio had sold the pizza place. But Vogel's Deli, gone. The coin laundry, too. Jesus, there's a Apple store.

Abe came around the side of the car. He smiled. "What's wrong, Len. Everything changed, didn't it?" He reached out for Lenny's arm, but Lenny moved ever so slightly.

Abe sighed.

Lenny turned. "Abe, I...not here. It's different here."

Abe shook his thick white hair. He rolled his eyes, but he had to be patient. Thirty-three years they'd been together, they'd raised Abe's daughters, after Gladys walked out after catching Abe and-who was that young man?

Murdock! Right. Merrick and Murdock were twins, and they sold their asses downtown...and Gladys had caught Abe with Murdock.

And that was pre-Lenny, that was for sure. A sweet little hustler. And Gladys was GONE. And then Abe had met Lenny at the baths in downtown Burbank, was in 1984?, No, '82, and then they got together for good a year or so later.

"I thought I had the love of my life, but it turned out he was just using me 'cause he couldn't get laid, with girls. I couldn't either, but I knew I didn't want to." Lenny had explained once.

"Well, deep down. I think we both thought that we were getting it on temporarily until we met girls. Yes, from seventh grade till Squiggy suddenly met Beth and got married. And then we even fooled around a lot after that, but then Squiggy told me to get out of his life

Abe understood that kind of thing. But what he couldn't imagine was...the ugly little creature who Lenny had burned a torch for.

Abe had seen a few tattered Polariods, and Squiggy was short and revolting.

Abe had been known in gay Burbank as "Abe-the-Babe", and a lot of queens had been depressed when the gorgeous tax attorney had hooked up with the depressed "Lone Wolf" cabdriver.

Abe had put Lenny through electrician's school, and they'd raised the girls, so well that when Gladys re-emerged in 1999, Shannon had actually said "Fuck you, Lenny's my mother."

And now, a damn class reunion is shaking everything up. Why?


	2. Chapter 2

EMBITTERED, NAH. SHE WAS STILL HOT, A MIRROR DIDN'T HAVE TO TELL HER.

"Mom, we're in the ballroom now." Eric said in his mother's ear. He insisted on taking her arm, even though with her long white cane, she got around better than he did. He'd never known his mother when she'd had her eyesight, and her upbringing sounded like something from that "Grease!" play.

"I know, I know. I'm assaulted wit' Old Spice. The ennobling scent of the mid-life Trump voter."

Eric bit his lip. He didn't want to start laughing his ass off in this grotesque place.

Audrina had begged to go along. "I want to document this with my phone. Nana, please make Dad bring me." But Sally had dragged their daughter away, bribing her with Lollapalooza tickets. At Kochanski's Concertina Beer Hall. He should ask Mom if Sinatra or Bobby Darin ever played there.

"Y'know, we shoulda brought Audie along for this. Then when she puts it online, she could describe and re-describe the weirdness."

Weirdness. This was why Nana was so "hip" with Audrina and her friends.

Eric shook his head, and bent down to the card table where the old biddies were fumbling with nametags. "I need one for Laverne Defrense-"

"DeFazio, you ungrateful half-Sicilian shame. If your gran-dad was still alive, he'd come up beside your head."

"Well, Mom. You've been hitched a few times, a lot of last names. I just wasn't around for this first."

One of the women stood up. She was grossly overweight and jiggled as she leaped up and down. "Oh my God. You're Laverne Dabney, the blind mystery writer. You are! I can't follow suspense, it's creepy but wait till I tell my next door neighbor that I sat behind her favorite author for Earth Science, and I think we were in gym together...you hit me with a towel once."

"Don't try to get even just 'cause my peeps're broke. I still got a reachin' right cross."

Eric hoped fervently that there would be a bartender who could make a Long Island Iced Tea.


	3. Chapter 3

A TORRID PHONE CALL, OR AT LEAST A QUICK ONE

"Skillman Sound"

" Chandelier, this is ."

"No, this is Chablis. You want to talk to Andy?"

"Y-yes. God I wish he'd get a cell-"

"Hey, Shirl. How you likin' the reunion?"

"Squiggy, I wish you were here. And you shouldn't let those little slu-girls call you Andy."

"I don't mind. I go by Andy. I don't go by Squiggy no more-"

"Any more. You don't go by Squiggy any more."

"Right. You said it. So why you call me that? I changed my name from Squiggman to Skillman. Beth was a bitch, but that was the best advice she-"

"Ok. Enough. I'm at the reunion right now. I wish you were here."

"I don't want a lotta assholes comin' up, "Hey Squiggy"

"That might not happen."

"We been married twenty-six years, and this is the first time you called me Squiggy since-"

"I'm sorry Squi-Andrew. You're right. You're a different person now. But get this-Laverne is here, and she's BLIND."

"Don't you read "People" magazine? Not you, you're the intellectual. Just 'Readers Digest' right? I showed you that article. Macular degenerative whatsis, and real young. What's the last time you saw her?"

"I think it was 1970. At her dad's funeral. Before that, I hadn't seen Laverne in-"

"Yeah. Right. Well, article said Laverne was a shampoo girl, somethin' like that, lost her sight, and was on welfare, blind as a bat, and began tellin' stories into a tape recorder, neighbor typed them up, sold them to a "True Confessions" magazine-"

"No, I know. And now she has twenty-six best sellers. And a mini-series thing on Showtime. But I just-she looked sort of helpless, hanging on to, I guess it is her son's arm." Pause. "She was wisecracking away, though. Vice Principal Medowski is in a wheelchair, deaf as a post, and she was screaming into his ear that she knows he still wants to go under her skirt."

"Didja see Lenny? Bet he's fat."

"Is that why you didn't come, Squiggy?"

"No, I toleja, I didn't come because I'm a different person now. I got elevator shoes, a high school diploma, hair plugs, and the largest sound technician biz in Nutley, New Jersey. I been through est, all that. I like being taken seriously. I was a greaser nobody there. Like Lenny."

"And you loved Lenny."

"Shut up. I love you."

"We have what my shrink calls a companionate marriage. It's okay, I love you a lot, and you are my husband and my best friend. But you and Lenny-"

"Shirl, I got to go. Why don't you look for Carmine? See if you can blow him inna bathroom."

"That is totally uncalled for. And Carmine died of lung-hello?"


End file.
